


There Is Something After All

by emmiebee



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Gay Panic, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jonny can have Tim kisses, Kissing, M/M, Panic Attacks, Soft Gunpowder Tim, Soft Jonny d'Ville, Softness, Sweet Tim Rights, as a treat, it's brief but it's there, tim is pretty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29254935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmiebee/pseuds/emmiebee
Summary: Jonny gets distracted by Tim being pretty during a show and has a panic attack. Tim is there for him.
Relationships: Jonny d'Ville/Gunpowder Tim
Comments: 7
Kudos: 68





	There Is Something After All

**Author's Note:**

> I have THOUGHTS about these two ok??? If anyone wants to come scream with me my tumblr is @gunpowdville (new mechs sideblog, my main is @queen-of-the-bicons)

Jonny D’Ville. Did NOT get distracted. When he performed, he was in his element. He was a god, and the stage was his kingdom. He could create and destroy worlds, all through story and song. The only thing that was allowed to distract him a little was if some violence broke out in the middle of a show and he was obliged to join in. But that was it. 

There was no reason this should have affected as much as it did. He looked at Tim all the time. He often glanced over at his crewmates during live shows, it was just something he  _ did.  _ There was no reason this particular show should have been any different. But it was.

They were performing High Noon Over Camelot at a small cabaret on an unremarkable planet in some mostly forgotten sector, which again provided no reason for anything to be different than it was at any other time. They were just coming up on ‘Peacemaker’, and as Jonny was speaking the narration leading up to the song, he happened to glance over at Tim. 

Now, Jonny was aware that Tim was pretty. It wasn’t that he had never noticed it before. But looking at the gunner now, his hair loose and spilling over his shoulders, the stage lights glinting off the metal of his eyes, a gleefully vicious smile lighting up his face, it hit Jonny like a bullet to the gut. Tim was  _ pretty.  _ Gorgeous, even. And that was… that was a problem.

Jonny didn’t even notice his own voice trailing off, right in the middle of the story. He didn’t notice it even when Tim met his eyes, brow furrowing in concern. He even looked pretty doing that. That little scrunch between his eyebrows… goddamnit it was  _ adorable.  _ Why the fuck was it adorable? This wasn’t allowed. This couldn’t be allowed. And that little tilt of his head… wait. Why was he looking at him all concerned like that? What had Jonny done that would worry him? What was Jonny doing? What was he  _ supposed  _ to be doing?

Fuck. A  _ show. They were in the middle of a show,  _ and Jonny had completely halted the narrative  _ just to stare at Tim.  _

Feeling suddenly very, very small and very, very lost, Jonny forced his gaze away from Tim and stumbled backwards into the backstage area. He squeezed his eyes shut and sank down to the floor, back against the wall of the small crowded space. He couldn’t get Tim’s face out of his head, no matter how hard he tried. 

This couldn’t be happening. He was  _ over  _ his feelings for Tim, whatever they may have been. After pulling Tim back from the brink of death and granting him immortality he didn’t want, Jonny had squashed that pathetic little flutter in his chest, the one that had caused him to do something so stupidly selfish, the one that shouldn’t even have  _ been  _ there in the first place. 

His heart wasn’t human. It wasn’t  _ real.  _ He shouldn’t be able to  _ feel  _ things like this, and it was driving him crazy. He got to be immortal, got to live forever with an actually pretty decent family of idiots, but he still had to feel everything all the time, and he hated it. Feeling this for Tim was just going to make it worse, he knew that, and had made peace with it a long time ago. He couldn’t let himself be tortured like this again. He had to do something, had to make it stop. 

For a moment his mind was completely blank, and then suddenly there were hands on his, pulling them away from his chest and holding them tightly. “Jonny. Jonny, look at me. Come on, you bastard, eyes on me. Fucking  _ look at me,  _ dammit!”

A forehead bumped his, something like a gentle headbutt, and Jonny blinked the panicked haze from his eyes to find Tim, beautiful stupid Tim, kneeling in front of him, holding his hands like a lifeline. 

“There you are,” Tim said softly, giving Jonny’s hands a squeeze, relief evident in his voice and expression. For a moment he was once again the sweet boy he had been back in the moon war. No, wait, scratch that, he was  _ still  _ the sweet boy he had been back in the moon war, it was just sometimes hard to spot under the layers of trauma that now weighed him down. 

“What the  _ hell  _ were you thinking?” Tim demanded, tone suddenly sharp, and Jonny doesn’t understand until he looks down at his chest and sees the deep scratches over his heart, the blood soaking through his shirt. “...Ah. That. I was, well…”

“You  _ promised  _ me,” Tim scolded him, squeezing his fingers so tightly Jonny thought they would pop off. “You promised me you wouldn’t do it again.” 

“Why the fuck did I do that?” Jonny scowled, then caught Tim’s expression and flinched. “Yeah, I know, I know, Tim. Sorry I’m a fucking disaster and I let you down again.”

“Stop that,” Tim let go of one of Jonny’s hands just long enough to give him a light slap on the face. “None of that. Just… what the hell happened? One moment you were onstage and everything was fine and the next… this.”

Jonny shrugged halfheartedly. “Just got overwhelmed, I guess.”

“By what?” he didn’t want to answer, but Tim was looking so concerned, and he was  _ still  _ fucking gorgeous, and before Jonny could stop himself he said: “By you.”

Tim froze, and then just sat there in silence for a second, clearly confused. “You… me?”

“ _ Yes,  _ you,” Jonny snapped. When Tim wouldn’t stop giving him that  _ unfairly  _ adorable look of confusion, he sighed and attempted to elaborate. “Look, I’m not good at this, alright? Y’know. The feelings thing. But I need you to stop looking at me like that.” this just made Tim screw up his face even further, amplifying the cuteness by about a thousand degrees, and suddenly Jonny couldn’t take it anymore. “Fuck it.”

With that, he lunged forward and kissed Tim square on the mouth. It was barely a kiss, just a brush of lips on lips, and then it was over, and Jonny was pulling back, regretting it immediately.

“I’m-” he started, but his voice trailed off as Tim reached out and gently took the first mate’s face in his hands. He brushed his thumbs lightly over Jonny’s eyeliner, smudging it a bit, but that hardly mattered. What mattered was that Tim then tilted toward him, touching their foreheads together. He nudged Jonny’s nose with his own, as though asking permission. Jonny was finding it hard to form actual words, but he managed to make a small sound of assent, and then Tim was kissing him.

It was a slow kiss, sweet and impossibly tender, a tentative dive into deep waters that pulled them both down, down, down into its bottomless depths. At some point Jonny managed to get his hands into  _ that hair  _ and started running his fingers through it almost reverently. 

The moment didn’t last long enough, and when Tim pulled back Jonny was suddenly struck by what exactly had just happened, and how much it meant. “Tim-”

“Don’t,” Tim’s voice is soft as he takes Jonny’s hands back into his, threading their fingers together. “Later, okay? When we’re back on the ship. We can talk about it then, yeah? We’ve got a show to finish.”

Oh shit. Jonny had completely forgotten about the gig. “Okay,” he relented, and Tim pulled him to his feet, pressing a kiss against his knuckles before letting go of his hands. Jonny definitely did  _ not  _ swoon. And back onstage they went. 

Jonny still wasn’t sure exactly what had happened there, or what the tangled knot of emotions inside his beating metal heart meant, but that was alright for now. They would figure it out. And maybe there were no happy endings, but that didn’t mean tragedy was all there was. 

And if he stood a little closer to Tim during the rest of that performance, and spent a little extra time staring at him than he did any of the others, well, that was his own business, so who the fuck are you to ask?


End file.
